Built in 1997, the 48,548-square-foot hotel sits on 2.7 acres on the north side of Wolf River Boulevard just west of its intersection with South Germantown Road. The assessor’s 2013 appraisal is $4.4 million.

Built in 1999, the 38,048-square-foot hotel sits on 1.5 acres on the north side of Poplar Pike next to the Residence Inn. The assessor’s 2013 appraisal is $2.3 million.

Source: The Daily News Online & Chandler Reports

– Daily News staff

UPS More Than Doubles Third Quarter Profit

A pickup in deliveries helped UPS more than double its profit from a year ago, when Big Brown took a hit from pension-restructuring costs.

UPS delivered more than 1 billion packages in the quarter, an increase of 4.6 percent, led by gains in international-export and U.S. ground shipments.

The company’s U.S. business was helped by growth in online retailing, although a slowing in the financial-services industry cut into next-day-air letter deliveries.

Overseas, volume rose due to growth in European exports. But Asia was flat as international customers continued to shift from priority air service to cheaper but slower delivery options. UPS has been trimming cargo flights from Asia.

“Our third-quarter results improved from the first half of the year even though our business faced similar market dynamics,” Chairman and CEO Scott Davis said Friday on a conference call with analysts.

The company added that it plans to hire 55,000 workers to handle the holiday-season crush — about the same as the last two years. It expects daily volume to rise 8 percent over 2012. UPS believes that the busiest day will be Monday, Dec. 16, when it expects to pick up more than 34 million packages.

United Parcel Service Co. said that net income in the third quarter soared to $1.10 billion, or $1.16 per share. That was a penny better than analysts expected and an improvement over the $469 million, or 48 cents per share, that UPS earned a year ago. The 2012 figure would have been $1.06 per share without a $559 million pension-restructuring charge.

The company stood by its forecast of full-year earnings between $4.65 and $4.85 per share. Chief Financial Officer Kurt Kuehn said that was based on the assumption of “growth in the U.S. economy, but not outsized growth, and still-emerging recovery in Europe.” Analysts expect $4.74 per share.

Delivery companies expect a pickup in business during the fourth quarter as they handle holiday gift shipments. This week, FedEx Corp. predicted volumes on peak December days will rise by double-digit percentages over last year.

UPS executives said that this year’s late Thanksgiving holiday, Nov. 28, will create delivery challenges by compressing the peak season.

– The Associated Press

Memphis Hop Bus Service Wins Arts Marketing Honor

The Memphis Hop shuttle bus service linking 10 tourist and arts destinations in Memphis will be honored next month during the National Arts Marketing Conference in Portland, Ore.

ArtsMemphis will be presented a first place award for marketing by Americans for Arts during the Portland gathering.

The hop-on, hop-off service debuted in May, linking the tourism and arts venue in a service that runs Tuesday-Sunday and makes hourly stops at each destination.

It was launched by Blues City Tours and ArtsMemphis working with the Memphis Convention & Visitors Bureau.

– Bill Dries

Dishcrawl Brings Cocktail Wars to Town

A new local Dishcrawl event is happening in December – cocktail wars.

Dishcrawl is bringing its first North American Spirits Championship to 10 cities, including Memphis. The local version will take place Dec. 12 from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. at Alfred’s on Beale.

Five Memphis mixologists will prepare cocktails live on stage in front of a voting audience and a panel of judges. They’ll be competing for accolades like best cocktail, best presentation, hottest bartender and more.

– Andy Meek

Government Shutdown Hits US Consumer Confidence

U.S. consumer confidence fell in October as concern grew that the partial government shutdown and political fight over the nation’s borrowing limit would slow growth.

The University of Michigan said Friday that its index of consumer sentiment fell to 73.2 from 77.5 in September.

The index has fallen for three straight months after reaching a six-year high of 85.1 in July.

A measure of Americans’ expectations for future growth fell to its lowest level since late 2011, pulling down the overall index.

Falling confidence can cause Americans to spend less, which would slow the economy, though the relationship isn’t automatic.

Lower confidence “going into the holiday season could somewhat limit consumers’ plans to splurge,” said Yelena Shulyatyeva, an economist at BNP Paribas.

Americans made more negative references to the federal government’s impact on the economy this month than at any time in the roughly 50-year history of the survey.

“Consumers have increasingly moved toward the view that the government has become the primary obstacle to more robust economic growth,” the University of Michigan report said.

Richard Curtin, director of the survey, said that it was the third time in the past three years that negative comments about the government had reached a record level.

The previous two occurred when Congress and the White House fought over raising the borrowing limit in August 2011 and when a package of tax increases and spending cuts, known as the “fiscal cliff,” loomed at the beginning of this year.

“After each repeated advance in optimism during the past three years, a revival of the DC follies promptly reversed the gain,” Curtin said.

– The Associated Press

Obama Admin. Taps Contractor to Fix Health Site

Nearly a month into the health care rollout and no end in sight to computer problems, President Barack Obama’s administration says it’s finally getting someone outside the government to take the lead.

Administration officials announced Friday that one of the website’s subcontractors — QSSI, Inc. — is being promoted to general contractor with overall responsibility for fixing the HealthCare.gov website.

The problem-riddled site was supposed to be the online portal for uninsured Americans to get coverage under President Barack Obama’s health care law, but it has turned into a huge bottleneck instead.

Until now, officials at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services had the lead role.

QSSI has built a component of the website — called the data hub — that is working relatively well.